


Little Talks

by uglowian



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Friendship, Gen, M/M, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10047956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uglowian/pseuds/uglowian
Summary: so here's a fun story called "i wrote this for a no_tags challenge about 20000 years ago and then never archived it as an actual work of mine." so here it is now. and you get a double-win because dapatty alsopodfic'dit. go listen, it's awesome.the original prompt for this fic was: "Pete/Gerard, late night conversations" and it was first sharedhere.





	

i.  
  
“He’s my brother,” Gerard says into the summer night, like maybe Pete didn’t already know this.  
  
Pete shifts his weight from foot to foot, watching people mill through the bus lot like strange cutout figures, flattened out in the sallow glow of the lot’s tall lamps. The sounds of shouting and laughter drift to them, thinned out over the asphalt sprawl.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Pete answers, hoping he sounds more than a little annoyed. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”  
  
Because, honestly, Pete has no idea. He doesn’t know Gerard that well, is aware of him mostly as Mikey’s older brother whose particular brand of shyness and sincerity mostly make for brief and uncomfortable interactions when Pete happens to run into him. Gerard could have dragged him out to the fringes of the lot just to give him some bit about not breaking Mikey’s heart—or this could just be his weird way of trying to get to know Pete.  
  
Who knows.  
  
Gerard scuffs one foot against the asphalt. “No—I just.” He on sucks the inside of his cheek.  
  
Pete looks at him. “Look, if you’re going to give me a big ‘handle with care’ speech about Mikey, I’ve got it under control, okay? I’m not a complete asshole.” Actually, he thinks that point might be up for debate, but what Gerard doesn’t know won’t kill him.  
  
Gerard stays quiet for what feels like a long while, studying the backs of his hands.  
  
“I don’t think you’re an asshole,” he says, finally. “I just think you’re not careful.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I mean—it’s not your fault.” He looks at Pete now, with a guileless expression that makes something twist up in Pete’s gut. “No one’s careful, really, when you think about it. Especially not when it comes to stuff like…I don’t know. The way we feel. But I know Mikey and I just. Need you to try.”  
  
Pete stares. For half a second, he tastes a snide remark on his tongue ( _overprotective much?_ ), but he lets it go. Instead he just shrugs, and looks away.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
Two more beats of silence pass between them before Pete stuffs his hands in his pockets.  
  
“So—that’s it?”  
  
Gerard gathers his bottom lip between his teeth and nods. The gesture is, in a weird way, freakishly reminiscent of Mikey. Pete frowns.  
  
“You don’t like me, do you?” he asks.  
  
Gerard opens his mouth, closes it, and then looks away.  
  
“Not really,” he says.  
  
It stings to hear it, which makes Pete angry, because why does he care, and fuck you too.  
  
“Okay,” he says blandly. “Well. Have a good rest of the night.”  
  
Gerard doesn’t say anything, his gaze still fixed on a nonspecific point that Pete can’t see. His jaw gone tight, Pete turns away, walking back to the buses, and leaving Gerard to the quiet edges of the dark.  
  
  
  
ii.  
  
Gerard gets a call on the fringes of a July dusk from a number he doesn’t recognize.  
  
He frowns at the phone for a moment, tempted to just ignore it altogether, but curiosity gets the better of him.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Hey, Gerard?”  
  
It takes him half a second to place the voice. When he does, the shiver of recognition makes something tense up in the back of his neck. “Pete?”  
  
“Yeah, uh. Hey. Sorry—is this a bad time?”  
  
“No. No, it’s fine.” He settles onto the steps leading down into the estate gardens and feels the entire space of the house loom behind him in the dark. “What’s up?”  
  
For a minute, the only response he gets is a weird shuffling sound, like Pete is walking somewhere, on the other end of the line.  
  
“Sorry,” Pete says. “I know this is—a weird call. It’s just. I heard about Mikey…”  
  
He trails off, like he isn’t sure how to finish that thought, and Gerard thinks of their one uncomfortable conversation a summer ago and, not for the first time, he feels guilty.  
  
“Anyway,” Pete continues. “I didn’t want to call Alicia if she’s—got other stuff on her plate, and so. I got your number from Patrick, and I figured I’d…check in.”  
  
Gerard closes his eyes, pressing the heel of his palm hard against one socket. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “Mikey’s—hanging in there.”  
  
“Okay. I’m glad.”  
  
He exhales slowly. “Yeah.”  
  
“If—um. If you talk to him, will you let him know I’m thinking of him?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
The night deepens and the quiet spreads out between them. Gerard wonders if he should make up an excuse to get off the phone, but Pete speaks before he gets the chance:  
  
“And you?” Pete asks. “You’re holding up?”  
  
The question catches Gerard off guard, not for what’s being asked, but because Pete sounds so sincere. He grips his phone and tries not to think about Mikey, or about Alicia, or about the huge manor at his back, full of incomplete and frightening histories.  
  
“I’m doing my best,” he says honestly.  
  
“Yeah. Okay.” Pete hesitates for a moment, and Gerard can hear him suck in one short breath. “I know this might be a little—ah. I don’t know. Weird, I guess? At any rate, you have my number now, so feel free to call me if you need anything.”  
  
“Okay.” He knows he must sound stiff or stilted, but he’s the kind of tired that leaves him feeling like he’s empty of anything but fatigue and the rawness that comes with it. He imagines Pete wherever he might be—in his car, in his apartment, out on the porch of a friend’s house—and he wishes he could summon up the strength to explain himself.  
  
Instead, his head just feels heavy, and Pete has to break the awkward silence again:  
  
“Take care, Gerard.”  
  
“Hey, Pete?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I’m—thanks for calling.”  
  
“Hey, it’s nothing.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“I’ll talk to you soon.”  
  
And then he’s gone. Gerard sits in the night, looking at his phone. Something pinches behind his eyes and he fishes his crumpled carton of cigarettes out of his pocket.  
  
I’ll talk to you soon.  
  
Exhaling white curls into the gloom, Gerard is surprised to find himself hoping that Pete means it.  
  
  
  
  
iii.  
  
Pete isn’t sure exactly when he and Gerard became friends, but he realizes that they _are_ right around the time he reaches for his phone in the middle of the night, like it’s a built-in instinct. Never mind that it’s almost two in the morning and that they haven’t really talked in more than a few months. Never mind that _most_ of their talking before that has been a sporadic but ongoing text conversation regarding comic books, _Danger Days_ , how weird and wonderful their children are, and the seven or eight books that Pete read on a particularly bad week of too much energy and no sleep. Never mind any of that.  
  
The line rings four times before Gerard picks up, sounding groggy—or maybe just hoarse. Pete can’t tell.  
  
“Hey?”  
  
“Sorry, did I wake you up?”  
  
“No—no. I’m up.”  
  
That isn’t a clear answer, really, but Pete doesn’t press the point. Instead, he says, “I know this is kind of out of nowhere but I’m—kind of thinking of going for a drive. You want to come?”  
  
“Oh. Um—” He hears the brief pop of a breath and realizes that Gerard must be smoking a cigarette. “Sure. Should I come to you?”  
  
“No, I’ll swing by.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
Thirty minutes later, he’s idling in a driveway, wondering what the hell made him think this was a good or even remotely appropriate idea. By the time Gerard appears, jogging up to the car, Pete is practically ready to call the whole thing off and apologize.  
  
“Hey,” Gerard says, sliding into the passenger seat.  
  
“Hi.” Pete twists down the volume on the radio. “Sorry that I got you out of the house for what actually might be a terrible idea.”  
  
Gerard just shrugs, looking at ease. “Nah, it’s fine. Where are we going?”  
  
“I don’t know yet.”  
  
That earns him a small smile. “An adventure. Cool.”  
  
Before Pete can talk himself into feeling worse about this situation, he shifts to drive, heading for the highway.  
  
It’s easy to sit in silence with Gerard, he realizes, though he doesn’t know when or how that happened. As they take the highway up towards the hills, LA sprawls beneath them in a glittering penumbra and Gerard just drums his fingers on his thigh, watching the landscape rush by; the quiet between them is calm and comfortable.  
  
Eventually, Pete pulls to a stop when they reach the foothills of the Sierra Madre, and by then, it’s nearly three in the morning. From here, they can see what seems like the whole reach of the city.  
  
Pete laughs a little. “So…it kind of seems like I dragged you out here to make out. I promise, that wasn’t what I was going for?”  
  
Gerard just snickers, twisting one cherry-red bit of hair around his finger. “Nah, I know.”  
  
“So you knew there was no hope of this being worth your while, and you still came along? You’re a saint.”  
  
“I dunno…” Gerard tugs at that bit of hair. The light from the dash limns his features, lending him a pretty, fragile quality. “We all can’t sleep, sometimes.”  
  
Pete shifts a little in his seat. “Yeah, well. Thanks, still.”  
  
Gerard just _hms_ , looking out at the city. After a moment, he says: “When I was a kid, I used to sleepwalk.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Like, not bad—they weren’t night terrors or anything, but I did all kinds of weird shit, I guess. One time I woke myself up because I pulled out a drawer of silverware and dumped it all over the floor.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah. I gave my parents a heart attack, I think. It was always weird, waking up somewhere that wasn’t my bed. It always took a minute to shake the feeling that I was still dreaming.”  
  
Pete can’t look away from him, sitting there in the cool green glow like a strange apparition. In his chest, something twists a little; his heart skips a beat.  
  
“I never did anything like that,” he says. “I just—I remember I used to _try_ not to sleep. Like I thought it was a competition or something that I was having with myself. It never ended well. And now, when I want to sleep, I can’t.”  
  
Gerard nods— _yeah_ —and tugs at his hair again. “I can stay with you, if you want. Tonight, I mean. If you feel too wired to rest.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
A shrug. “Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah, I—that’d be nice.”  
  
Gerard smiles—the small, slanted curving of his mouth—and Pete hopes that smiling back is enough to show how grateful he is.  
  
The eventual drive back into the city is as quiet as the journey out; Gerard pulls out his phone this time, squinting at the bright screen as he sends off a series of texts. Back at Pete’s place, he offers Gerard a pair of sweatpants and a worn out t-shirt to sleep in.  
  
“Thanks,” Gerard says when he’s changed.  
  
“No problem.”  
  
Pete rests his head against the pillows, feeling the mattress shift and sag as Gerard crawls into the bed beside him. When Gerard wriggles close enough to tuck his head against Pete’s chest, Pete feels some pale space open up behind his clavicle, weightless and bright, and he draws his thumb over Gerard’s temple.  
  
“Thanks for staying,” he says quietly.  
  
Gerard hums contentedly in response.  
  
Pete doesn’t really fall asleep that night. Instead, he listens to Gerard’s breath even out and watches the sky get lighter. He feels that pale space grow brighter.  
  
  
  
iv.  
  
Gerard has gotten used to the weird hours Pete keeps by now, and so it isn’t entirely a surprise when Pete calls him at 3 a.m. while he’s standing out behind his house, breathing in the clear April night.  
  
“Hey?”  
  
“I saw the website,” Pete announces with preamble, and a bright, unexpected twinge sparks in Gerard’s gut.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. How are you holding up? I mean—I figure you didn’t make this call tonight.”  
  
“No—it’s been a few weeks. I’m okay.” He left his cigarettes in the house, he realizes, and he suddenly feels too tired to go back in and find them. He props his elbows on the railing of the porch. “It’s…I don’t know. I knew it was coming, on some level.”  
  
“Still.”  
  
“Still?”  
  
“I don’t know—doesn’t make it any easier. Even if you know you need it.”  
  
“You make it sound like I broke up with someone.”  
  
“I find that that’s not an entirely incorrect analogy.”  
  
“Yeah.” He breathes out. “I guess you’re right.”  
  
A thousand other words clot at the back of his throat, sharp and painful, and it seems like such work to try to disentangle and make sense of them. Another breath in; this one shakier than he would have liked.  
  
“Gerard?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“It’s going to be okay.”  
  
“I know.” And he _does_ know, really. But right now he’s so tired that his teeth ache; there is some goodbye he needs to say, but he doesn’t know how. It’s going to be okay, sure—but right now, it just hurts. “I just…we needed it. I knew we did. I just didn’t think it would suck so much.”  
  
“Yeah,” Pete agrees. “I know.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“I don’t know. I just feel like I should apologize to someone.”  
  
“You don’t have to.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Are you going to get any sleep tonight?”  
  
He closes his eyes, feeling the cool April breeze furl against his cheeks. “Probably not.”  
  
“I didn’t think so.”  
  
“You’re one to talk.”  
  
Pete chuckles. “Fair enough. I should go, though. We have to catch a flight in like…three hours?”  
  
Of course. Because they’re on tour.  
  
Gerard recalls a faraway summer night populated by buses and orange streetlamps and the distant noise of young kids riding high on the intoxicating belief that they were invincible. That bright twinge seizes in his gut again.  
  
“Pete?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Didn’t we just go over this?”  
  
“No—I’m sorry for something else.”  
  
“Okay?”  
  
Gerard bites at his cuticle. “It’s stupid. I’m glad we’re friends, is all.”  
  
Pete huffs another gentle laugh. “Me too. I’m sorry I can’t keep you company.”  
  
“I’ll see you when you get back?”  
  
“Of course. I have to run, though.”  
  
“Okay—cool. Go. Thanks for calling.”  
  
“Hold tight,” Pete says. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”  
  
Gerard smiles in spite of himself. “Thanks.”  
  
“Bye.”  
  
“Bye.”  
  
His phone bleats, signaling the end of the call, and he taps his foot against the porch. The night is quiet. He does stay awake until the world starts to take shape in grey predawn light, at which point he goes back inside, showers, and lays down next to Lindsey.  
  
He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but the next time he wakes, it’s the late afternoon, and he can hear Lindsey and Bandit downstairs, singing to one another. Stiffly, he fumbles for his phone to check the time.  
  
_Pete Wentz_ , the phone announces in its alerts. Gerard taps his text messages.  
  
From Pete, a single line:  
  
_i love you, by the way_.  
  
Gerard stares at the text for a while, and in the words intuits a shared sense of understanding: everything builds up and comes back down again.  
  
_you too,_ he replies, then sets the phone down and lays still, watching the afternoon light stream in bars over the ceiling.


End file.
